Sunday, August 28, 2016

STEPPING OUTSIDE THE BOX by G.D. Ogan

Readers and Roses, welcome G.D. Ogan as our guest today. One lucky person will receive a digital copy of the book of your choice just for commenting. Please enjoy!

Hello
to readers of this blog, I’m G.D. Ogan and I have a three book
Paranormal-Romance Series in addition to my topic on a writers personal
creativity versus an editor’s expectations.

Topic:
Must the premise of a writer’s story
“conform” to the expectations of an editor?

My
feelings are that writers shouldn’t be bound by the expectations of others
including all powerful editors. While true that finding a publishing house
willing to “step outside the box” and publish stories that go against the norms
of a specific genre’ has in the past been a seemingly insurmountable

task, if
we allow anyone to dictate what we write we will be untrue to ourselves and
therefore negatively impact our creativity. As I see it, this is one of the
great benefits in Indie publishing, that WE are responsible for saying what
will and won’t be in our stories. My own experience with an editor trying to
force me to NOT publish my first novel may be instructive. An editor had read
my first novel prior to publication and said it violated the genre’ and
therefore I couldn’t publish it. The specifics of his concern were that my
novel contained vampires who, having been turned against their will, refused to
abase themselves by becoming blood-thirsty attackers of innocent humans like
the evil vampires who had changed them. That such a thing as “good vampires”
violated the genre’! Clearly he had never read or seen the Twilight Series. He
also said he had never heard of vampires being “intimate” with each other.
Again Twilight among other novels had already had that as part of their
stories. To make a long story short, rather than change my story to align
itself with the editors narrow views of vampirism, I Indie published my
“Immortal Relations” series of novels through Amazon’s Create Space Program and
I’m glad I did. What follows is information about the first book in the series
as well as where to find it along with the others currently available in print
and digitally.

The Blurb:

When Gary Logan discovers an old
black-and-white photograph of his father in Prague with a woman's handwriting
on the back, he flies there to investigate where his father had worked, only to
meet and fall in love with a beautiful lady who he believes to be a vampire. In
love with her, Gary is initiated into her coven of guardian vampires, beginning
an extraordinary journey of epic proportions.

Excerpt:
"STOP!" the General yelled. "I want to hear
nothing more of this beast Semenov! If I had been his commanding officer, I
would have dragged him into the middle of the compound and shot him myself.
What barbarian allowed him to continue in the Army?"
Zikoff looked like he was about to have a heart attack, so the General calmly
asked, "Did you tell the headquarters about his atrocities?"

Now, eyes filled with tears, Major Zikoff said, "Repeatedly, it is
why I asked to give up my scheduled promotion to higher rank and be placed into
the Reserves. I no longer felt I could be a party to his crimes and couldn't
get the headquarters to stop him. I had told them that I believed Semenov to be
criminally insane and that he should be sent to an asylum for treatment and to
safeguard society."

The General then patted Major Zikoff on the shoulders saying, "You did
your best, and you couldn't have done more without the backing of the
headquarters."

Major Zikoff broke down sobbing and sat down in a chair with his head between
his knees. Through his sobs, he said, "So many women and children, so much
unnecessary death...we had become worse than barbarians. I couldn't do that
anymore...I could never do that anymore."

Everyone in the room had tears just listening to what had once been a great
soldier, who had seen too much, done too much, and who seemed no longer
alive, but looking out from the bottom of his own private Hell. No one
approached him so Adam (none in the room knew Adam was a vampire) went over,
kneeled down to look him in the eyes, and while he spoke soothingly to Zikoff,
mentally gave him permission to forgive himself and allow himself a peaceful
life. Zikoff was then able to get up, saying to those in the room he was sorry,
asking the General if he could be excused. General Kolukov said, “Yes Major,
you’ve aided us immensely. You tried to do the right thing, go home and rest.
No one is ever going to bother you about this again…EVER!”

Kolukov had placed Zikoff under his own protection. Once the major was gone,
with fire in his eyes, the General said, “I want this bastard Semenov
‘terminated with extreme prejudice!’ I don’t want even a piece of bone
remaining; I want him utterly and completely destroyed!”

Adam knew that, as a vampire, Semenov had super-human strength and was a
trained Spetsnas killer, but Adam wondered if the General couldn’t have
prevailed against Semenov in hand-to-hand combat at that moment. He had never
seen such deadly anger in a human before.

General Kolukov spun aground to his Chief of Air Staff and said, “If it takes
nuclear weapons, I will get the President’s permission, I want these
infiltrators utterly destroyed.”

8 comments:

Welcome to the group, G.D. Funny thing...my editor called me the other day, giving me a TON of revision work to do on my last novel, including a change in the profession of my hero. Major revision ahead if I decide to do what she says. And, as in your case, part of her thinking hinges upon a stereotype that I am NOT enforcing. But she's worked with me through six books and she's got experience. When she says something isn't right, I listen to her. Now, her 'fix' might not be the right one, but I know enough that some kind of change is necessary...that decision is up to me. Exacting critical analysis is golden, but it certainly doesn't make my life easier! Good luck with your series!

I think most authors have had disagreements with their editors. To me, it's a matter of compromise. If your gut reaction is NOT to do the changes, so be it. But I'd generally give them careful consideration. I think in your case, it sounds as if you were right--good luck with that book!

I had a few issues with an editor whose suggested changes were to completely rewrite a secondary character to make her "nicer." She thought readers wouldn't be able to relate to my heroine's daughter who was a total brat. I stuck to my guns and actually had a lot of reader comments about the character being realistic. But that was my only major rebellion in 18 books. We have to pick our battles! Good luck with your series.

Welcome to Roses of Prose. In my limited experience with one pretty savvy editor who requested changes, she was right. Those changes made for a better book. Then, again, she didn't accuse me of genre violation. Best of luck with your work.

Welcome. Relationships with editors and agents can be difficult and rewarding. My usual first reaction to criticism (from an editor or my crit partners) is to get my back up. I've had to learn to mull over what they say and see if there might be something I can do. In your case, I can see why you had a harder than normal time accepting that editor's comments. I'd run away from him, too. Most of the writers here know I'm a hybrid--some trad published books, mostly indie. So I can appreciate your choice to go indie. Go with your gut and best wishes.

Welcome, G.D., and my apologies for being late! I think you have to at least consider what the editor has to say. Sometimes (or often?) we're so involved with our own stories, we miss things a a fresh set of eyes will see. I do think yours was a bit off the mark with his comments about vampirism though!

I selected Ms. Jannine Gallant's comment as the winning entry. If she'll pick from current books in the series I'll have Amazon-Kindle send her a free digital copy. The third listing in my blog failed to have the complete address: http://amazon.com/dp/B00G5BQS18 so if she pick it or book #1: http://amazon.com/dp/B006ZCBT6G or selects book #2: http://amazon.com/dp/B00A4IEHL6 and lets me know her choice at: gog6692@msn.com I'll have Amazon-Kindle to send it to her via her e-mail address (which hopefully is hooked-up to her "reader"). If she doesn't have the Kindle Application it's free from Kindle.